Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Archives

Saints and Biographies

Saint Francis Xavier - Jesuit Saint

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Just to get my direction straight, this is the kind of a Holy
Hour from four to five, in other words I talk and then, you sing and pray and
we close with Benediction. We spoke yesterday on St. Ignatius and the logical
second Jesuit saint to speak about is St. Francis Xavier. He is sometimes called
the second founder of the Society of Jesus, a totally different personality
from Ignatius; a man who was very learned, intellectual, and in fact a university
professor when Ignatius found him.

I suppose the first thing we should note is how remarkably
different God's grace is in different people and that God is no respecter of
persons. He chooses those who cannot write like Ignatius and intellectuals like
Xavier. Like Ignatius, he was born of the nobility; Ignatius of the Loyola family
and Francis of the Xavier family. He was a faculty member of the University
of Paris when Ignatius found him. Ignatius had no hesitation, once it was clear
to him that Francis had a vocation, to keep hounding Francis to the point of
making himself very unbearable. When he told Francis, I'm sure you've heard
over the years, "Francis, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world
and lose his soul." Francis had everything, humanly speaking in his favor.
He was young, intelligent, had a good position, highly respected, very influential
and the prospect of advancement.

Ignatius realized that God's grace has got to make the change in Francis,
that he cannot do it alone, so he finally convinced Francis that he should make
the Spiritual Exercises and that did it. For thirty days then, Xavier made the
Exercises and it was, at least partly if not in large measure, the experience
that Ignatius had with Xavier that convinced Ignatius that the Exercises, as
we call them, there is a single main purpose to discover ones' vocation. And
over the years the Exercises are given either to people who need to find their
vocation or those who have found it, to strengthen themselves in their vocation.
This is not trivial when we think of all the retreats by now we've made. In
other words, Francis convinced Ignatius that no less than he, Ignatius had found
his vocation by making the Exercises, not for thirty days but for twelve months
that others would profit at least as much. In any case, the combination of Ignatius
pursuing him and the Spiritual Exercises converted Xavier from a very worldly,
though believing layman into one of the Church's great saints. After his conversion,
all his biographers tell us that he was very ascetical, that is very mortified
 in food, in physical accommodations and very prayerful. And the phrase that
I copied from the Latin text that I used, he became after his conversion, in
rerum divinarum quantumplacone de fixus  he became fixed, rooted, set,
in the contemplation of divine things. There's more than just a superficial
lesson in that there is no easy way to become a contemplative. The precondition
for becoming a contemplative in the sense in which the Church understands, the
precondition is detachment from creatures. You do not become fixed on God, to
quote the Latin phrase, until you become detached from everything else but God.
In any case he became, for a man as active as he was, a mystic and the mysticism
was, you might say God's reward for his giving up and the more he had promising
him, the more merit he gained. Over the years I've told so many people: the
more things you like or the more things you dislike, you've got the makings
of a great saint. 'Me?' "Yes you." 'Father, you got me wrong.' "I
don't have you wrong." The more set you are in your ways  the more stubborn;
the more comfort seeking  the more selfish; the more ambitious  the more naturally
proud; the harder you have to practice chastity  the more lazy you are. Barring
God's extraordinary providence, in His ordinary providence, it's those people
honest, last June 18 was thirty-five years in the priesthood I've learned
a lot. I could write from now for the next twenty years to share what I've learned,
but one thing I've learned  the more attached a person is to creatures, the
higher are God's plan for that soul, because once that person gives in (audio
cut off for three counter numbers) . He died in his early forties one
of my great models. People tell me I'm working too hard, but I'm still around.
Xavier finished his earthly course years before  he wore himself out. So much
for his European stay. When the Society of Jesus was organized he was one of
the first members  that was in 1534  he was not yet a priest; the only priest
in the society, as we call ourselves, was Peter Faber who ironically has yet
to be canonized; he's only a blessed. And those who were laymen at the time
have become saints.

In any case, shortly after the society was founded, Ignatius sent him
to India. Ignatius said it was the most painful thing in his life  they were
very close. Ignatius made a big sacrifice and in the ordinary course of providence
I'm sure that Francis would have lived much longer had he stayed on in relatively
comfortable Europe compared to the impossible India. The reason he went to India
is because the Pope, Paul III wanted somebody to go to India. There were Christians
there you know from the time of St. Thomas, but what Christians. We'll talk
about them in a few minutes. He went to India took months to get there
shipwrecked, quite a few people died on the way. He managed to get there alive.

I was a novice when I read my first life of Francis Xavier. With apologies
for saying this but, it is worth mentioning. Francis lived a very austere life
and he would wash his own socks on the way to India, that's what I've been doing
ever since. Once known if I'm in a convent my socks disappear. I've had to hide
them (laughter) so I decided before my first vows, this must be one of the conditions
for becoming a saint, there are others of course, but one is washing your own
socks. When he got to India, I suppose he thought he would have a lot of trouble
interesting the Pagans in Christianity  no trouble at all, eager, hungry to
hear about Jesus, Mary and Joseph. All these troubles he wrote back to Ignatius
came from the Christians, including their priests. Here's one quotation. Speaking
of these people, Christianscenturies of Catholic ancestry, but not instructed
in the faith, hear that? Here's one of Xavier's statements to Ignatius back
home. "All they know is that they are Christians, that's all they know
about the faith. There is nobody to teach them the Creed, the Our Father, the
Hail Mary and the Commandments of God's law and, Sisters, you can say that about
millions of Catholics today. The situation is horrendous, so much so that the
Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa's sisters whom I teach in the Bronx ...
once I was giving them a conference in Chapel  I teach them every week in a
classroom outside of Chapel then every other week we have a conference in Chapel
 when I mentioned the missions and missionaries in one of my conferences and
somebody laughed and we're (I mean among the sisters) so I asked, "What
are you laughing at?" You know, we're friends, so they said, 'Father, listening
to you, you would think that India is a mission country. Do you know that when
we come to the United States we are sent to the missions. Mother Teresa considers
the United States a paganized country  sobering, isn't it?  but I'm afraid
true. So that's what Xavier met in India and not only were they ignorant, but
their bad example, Xavier complained, was the hardest obstacles he had to overcome
in convincing the Pagans that Christianity is a noble religion. Noble? Look
at those Christians in Angola. In other words, he had to shield his converts
from exposure to the Christians so they wouldn't be scandalized and the deeper
he went into the interior and the farther the Pagans were from Christianity,
the more and better converts he made. Sad, isn't it? But again, I'm afraid,
sadly true of so much of our own country. The husband of a very dedicated woman
in Philadelphia  good Presbyterian  his wife was hoping that he would become
a Catholic we met, husband and I just a good Christian. His wife of course,
and family he brought up Catholic  exemplary, but what I see of Catholics turns
me off.

In any case, the single greatest obstacle to evangelization, and Xavier
proved it, is a bad conduct of Christians. The single biggest obstacles to vocations
to the priesthood is priests who are not what they should be. The single biggest
obstacle to vocations to religious life is religious who are not what they should
be. The mail I got today from New York was about what's going on in one New
York community. It seems they had just hired a notorious communist to help teach
the community.

Xavier was a very zealous man. In other words, for him the way to Heaven
is to convert others and bring souls to Heaven with you. He took literally Christ's
words to go and preach the Gospel to all nations. He was about as far away from
Spain as you can get, when further than India he would be coming back to Spain
and again a deep lesson for us. The need of souls having the Gospel preached
to them and the pity that so often you don't find zealous people to proclaim
Christ. Francis Xavier wrote many letters to Europe begging for missionaries.
His letters written to Europe were written some of them to his own confreres,
especially St. Ignatius. He wrote letters to his former associates at the university
and he begged for missionaries. Among the statements over the years that I have
quoted and lectures I have given, Xavier said, "It is your speaking of
those who were Catholics in Europe but we're not concerned about the salvation
of souls, say outside of Europe. It is your laziness  this is a direct quotation
from Xavier  it is your laziness that is preventing so many souls from reaching
Heaven and of going to Hell." In other words, a lot of people are so smug
and satisfied in their situation that the idea of going to preach the Gospel,
especially in this case in a foreign land was if not unthinkable, was certainly
not attractive. Many people answered his letters. Remarkably, Xavier who was
no theologian in the ordinary sense of the word though he was a very intelligent
person, what we have of his writings is mainly one volume of his letters and
I'm sure he never intended them to be published. They are so out-spoken, so
critical of people who's lack of zeal as he kept telling them, is keeping souls
from reaching Heaven. You might say that the spirituality of Francis Xavier
is the spirituality of a missionary. Xavier was blessed in many ways by God
to help him convert the souls that he was trying to bring to Christ. We know
that he spoke to people who had many different dialects and languages. Father
John, they called him, who is staying with the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence
on Austin Ave. (it's from Carola, that's So. India and just within the confines
of his own home region) there are some twenty languages spoken. In other words,
Xavier as he traveled couldn't possibly master these tongues so one of the things
that God did was to give him the gift of tongues in the sense that he could
talk one language and many would understand what he was saying.

Xavier very soon began to work miracles. It must be twenty years ago if
I can find a copy I will have you read it  it's my defense of the miracles
of St. Francis Xavier. It seems that somebody wrote a life of Xavier, very learned
life, but was not so sure that Xavier worked all those miracles attributed to
him. Well, my Jesuit temper rose. I'm very seldom aroused, but I was  they
were genuine miracles and let nobody say the contrary including several people
raised from the dead. In other words, his phenomenal success in converting souls
was helped by the Holy Spirit. He came as a stranger into a strange land. The
few words that he learned were as nothing compared to the languages that he
would have needed to speak the language of the people; God then supplemented
his ignorance of the languages by having him gifted with working miracles. Realizing
that the future generation had to be converted to the faith and trained to know
their religion from childhood, he concentrated on bringing children around him.
He would go into a village ringing a bell  I'm not sure what kind of a voice
he had, but he would sing. Well, any man walking down the street ringing a bell
and singing would attract a crowd of children and he would teach them to sing
along with him and the songs that he taught them were their catechism lessons
which he had them memorize. It is no wonder then, and we don't have exact figures,
there's no way of telling. He was a missionary for only ten years, in ten years
he wore himself out  great, wonderful! St. Francis Regis, John Francis Regis,
died in the confessional about the same age as Xavier, wonderful! In any case,
we are sure that he baptized, personally, over one hundred thousand people.
Biographers are not sure how many were eventually baptized, some say several
hundred thousand, we are sure of at least a hundred thousand that he personally
baptized. Now if you divide a hundred thousand in to ten years, that's ten thousand
a year, just the baptizes and we don't have evidence that he took them into
I would say the Jehovahs' Witness or some of the Baptists baptize their people
by dipping them into water. He poured the water. If nothing else he would have
been exhausted from just the sheer baptizing.

Xavier
was not satisfied with preaching the Gospel in India. In ten years he met enough
converts he figured I would better to go on so he went to Japan. All told
he evangelized eight nations; India, Japan, and six other countries that of
course by now had been largely absorbed by the communists in China and Vietnam.
His great desire was to evangelize the people of China and as you know he died
on December the 2nd looking at China and wishing that he would live to get into
the mainland of the country and to preach the Gospel to them, but he never made
it. In other words, he died looking at China from his death bed. That's the
life of a great man. Very different from Xavier and now just a few features
of his spirituality.

The first feature is what I would call his intellectual humility. Ignatius
was very humble, but he didn't have to call it an intellectual humility for
obvious reasons. He was humiliated during the years that he sat on the hard
benches learning grammar with the children who we know made fun of him. Xavier
was a great mind, a very gifted intellect. The lesson I think for us in our
country especially, is an important one. My job has been teaching, at least
they would consider themselves intellectuals. All I know is the one virtue they
all desperately need is humility. And we are living in that kind of a country.
We're all infected by this disease or at least even if the disease is arrested,
we're all prone to it. It's in the air we breath, it's in everything we touch.
In other words, the hardest thing for the human person to submit to God is the
mind, and the more gifted a person is the harder it is to make that submission
 we're forever questioning, and questioning and questioning. Until now we have
some sixteen volumes of Karl Rahners; pray for him that before he dies he might
acknowledge the Popes' authority in moral matters  he does not accept it. The
most learned and disastrous denial of Humane Vitae of Paul VI is by Karl
Rahner and he has never retracted it. His sixteen volumes he's got a few
pious works which are nice good reading on Our Lady, the Sacred Heart 
beautiful; that's before he lost his I hope something slipped in his mind
rather than his faith. But the books, all these other books are called theological
investigation. My eye! That's not the purpose of theology to investigate, to
investigate what? You believe, you submit! It enters my mind when I was a child,
I must have told you, I told you people so much I'm afraid of repeating myself.
Sister, then her name was Gorgonia, did I tell you? fifth grade we were
talking about intellectual humility, whatever I was doing I was doing it. And
she called out to the back of the room, "Johnny (that's me) stop showing
off." I don't mind my telling you  I've got to keep watching it constantly.
Some people show off with their works of art or the multimillionaire who took
me through twenty miles of gardens. He had lost his faith and as we were driving
along slowly through his palatial estate, this is all for my pleasure, all for
my pleasure  he was showing off. So I can wax eloquence on his intellectual
humility, I keep cutting down on my vocabulary. I don't think I've ever said
this before, but one thing that I've learned, at least in the last ten years,
when I go over a manuscript for publication what simpler word can I substitute
for one that's in the manuscript now and I still find in print and I'm embarrassed
and I think to myself, 'Johnny, stop showing off.' I wouldn't tell this except
to friends. Do you know what I'm saying? Whatever we've got we want to show
off; we're afraid that somebody is liable to miss it. I watch young women combing
their hair on the plane. Like while I was on the stage, I won't dare imitate
 our Lord is protecting me. First, humility and especially humility in whatever
we've got, to watch it. If we don't parade, we don't vote, we don't in plain
English, show off. Xavier buried himself in the wilds of India. There was just
no possibility, they wouldn't appreciate ... in fact, he had to babble like
a child in trying to make sense of a language he didn't know. Okay, first feature.

Second  Union with God. Xavier by all accounts, was a very busy person. He
slept little (that's before they had blood pressure gauges) whatever he died
of it was inevitable. He was just living too busy and exhausting a life. Now
the lesson there is a good one. I'm speaking to you who don't have that much
physical work to do, that's not your vocation  you've got some to do and do
that. You are mainly to pray and the sacrifice of just living, there are six
of you. For any one of you, all you have to have is the other five in the community
and you don't have to read a book about sacrifice. And I don't even have to
know, all I have to do is know human nature. I'm better off, I've got sixty-one
others, we've got sixty-two in New York in the community, that makes it easier,
you know that? I know some of my confreres choose their tables, I can see. There's
a seat next to me, they don't sit there, they go else where, okay. That's human
nature. In other words there's enough seats to go around.

Union with God is absolutely necessary if we're going to do anything
great for God. In other words, it's not just your being here in Chapel. It's
not just whatever you're doing or for those who are more actively engaged as
surely I am and it took the doctor to tell me to stay put and thanks to your
sister nurse, I that was a contum cuntum, by the way, which I promptly applied.
I called up the doctor, he said, "that's a warning, Father." 'You
think I should go to Philadelphia on Saturday. I'm to speak to the profession
class, 6:30 Mass with Cardinal Quovare(?) I think better not, okay  and I've
got video taping to do.' "Don't do it." In any case, the more busy
we are no matter what we're doing the more we've got to be united with God and
for that there's no substitute. Having a prayer book in front of you is not
necessarily being united with God, in case nobody told you. There's no gimmick;
there's no trick; there's no course on where that you learn, it might help,
but union with God means exactly what it says. What part of us must be united
with God, don't forget this  our will, all right, our will! In the nature of
things this is Xavier's great lesson. No matter what else we may be doing and
we may have to be engaged and you name it what activity where our minds cannot
be, say, thinking of God. He knows that, but whether the mind is consciously
aware of God or not (who could finish this sentence it depends on what
translation you use). It's from the Old Testament. "While my body sleeps
(who could finish that sentence) my heart is awake." Where the
biblical word for 'will' is heart, all right? Even when we're asleep, because
we're doing it out of conformity with the will of God our heart is awake. In
other words, it is not what we do that matters, it's why we do it for Him. That's
the second lesson.

Third  obedience. His going to India was an act of obedience and a hard
act at that. He was sent as apostolic nuncio, the Pope's representative, great!
But he was the only Jesuit in India. He thought he joined a community and there
was no community. He was superior, subject, provincially he was everything 
though after ten years things improved, by that time he was ready to be rewarded
for his sacrifice. How many times I thought of Xavier in the five years I taught
at a state university, living  I found the Neuman Chaplin who was willing to
have a priest live with him  why I was living outside the community for five
years  that's why the Jesuits (pardon me for saying this, I feel I'm a good
Jesuit even though I'm in Lake Villa and living, shall I say, among or near
to the Handmaids of the Precious Blood). You know what I'm saying? In other
words our spirituality  this is Ignatian spirituality because it didn't drop
from the Heavens, of course the inspiration came from God  it had to be worked
out in practice. Here Xavier worked it out in practice. There is one statement
of Ignatius that Xavier obeyed to the letter, here's how it reads, and we're
still reading it, "Ours (it's always capitalized, that's us, Ours this
and Ours that) Ours should be ready to travel to various places wherever there
is hope of God's greater glory and the good of souls." For Xavier, go to
India, and for me, Lake Villa. If I was in another tradition, I couldn't do
it or I shouldn't do it. In other words, we may do work, and this is what Xavier
did in obedience  he even separated himself from the community that he dearly
loved and all the advantages and benefits. One thing that I don't tell you is
missing, my daily confession, which I miss.

Fourth feature, and the last one.
With his great love of God, he wrote that famous prayer, I hope you have it
somewhere. "O deus ego amote"--O God, I love thee. Somewhere it
should be among the Church's approved prayers. When some fifteen years ago
I was asked by the American provincials to put together a prayer book for
Jesuits, I naturally put in that prayer of Xavier. Yet with his great love
for God, Xavier was always a realist, he never lost sight of Heaven and of
Hell. That is not unimportant. In other words, lets never think we have graduated
from being motivated by the desire of being rewarded by God for our good works
and being motivated by the fear of God's justice if we lose His friendship.
It's no wonder he was made the Church's universal patron of the missions and
when Pius XI came along, you know what he did  he added the Little Flower.
He is the model of apostolic zeal and she is the model of apostolic prayer.
St. Francis Xavier, pray for us. In the name of the Father and of Son and
of the Holy Spirit.